Cleopatra's Inferno
by Subia Jasmine
Summary: The Wild Party: Jackie reading The Divine Comedy to Nadine and thinking about the underlying themes in his own life. It's short, I hope you like it.


It's very late

It's very late.  
The rooms are completely dark and deserted when I wander back into the common room looking for someone to talk to. I don't want to go to sleep yet. -

The sound of voices draws me into the room, lit by a small, porcelain lamp. Well, one voice. I stop in the doorway, but its owner does not pause. The room before me is laid out as such: to the far right corner there is a door, more for my use than any of the characters'. The walls are painted yellow-orange, a comforting color that still retains a sense of humor. There is a black couch with deep cushions, and a number of mismatched chairs for all the mismatched people who live here. There are various amenities for the personal needs of the peeps. Signs that they call this place home.

Everyone is sleeping but for myself and the couple in the common room. The man's black top hat rests, ignored, on the corner of the night-table that holds the lamp. The shadows it casts on the walls are strangely welcoming. The man's name is Jackie.  
Jackie is stretched out on the couch, at his ease, decked out in a black suit of crushed velvet that has been ripped stitch-for-stitch from Rob Marshall's _Chicago_, and interspersed with sparkling silver pinstripes running the length of his body. All along his arms and his glittering stomach rest little black and cream plumes of fur. The kittens have taken a liking to him, and have evidently decided that this is the most suitable place for them to sleep. One of the smaller ones, a black one with cream-colored patches around her orange eyes like glasses, making her look a little like a lemur, is curled up under the dancer's arm, her chin on his chest, like a child waiting for her bedtime story.  
As though to complete the insane picture before me, the hand not curled around the black kitten is propping up a well-worn copy of the promised story against his knee… Dante's _Divine Comedy_. His hand holds the pages open to Cantos III.

A bright shadow of a little girl sits up with her back against the couch, half-asleep and listening, floating on the current of his voice into sleep. Her faded nightdress, many sizes too big for her and stitched poorly in some places, is drawn up around her white colt knees and hangs down over her scrawny arms like a sack. It's probably a hand-me-down from her sister. She is barely younger than me, only by a year or so, I've never asked her when her birthday is, but that year feels a universe away. Even the way she sleeps is childlike.

Her light brown hair is damp and frizzy from her shower, curling carelessly into soft ringlets around her face. She rests contentedly with her head against Jackie's waist, twitching a little in her doze every time she hears him draw breath. I crouch down beside her and touch her arm.

"Nadine…" I whisper, as quietly as I can. She jerks awake and looks at me, startled. But then Jackie keeps reading, and she falls back under the spell of that metronomic voice. Her lips are parted slightly, and a strand of hair flutters with the butterfly breeze of her breath. Peaceful.  
Jackie is reading the first segment of Dante's _Divine Comedy- Inferno_.  
We listen as Jackie's crooning voice reads out the description of the first circle of Hell- Limbo. His voice is a metronome for Nadine's sleep, timing each moment. From his lips fall an enveloping darkness, a voice that forever verges on song, swaying over a valley of grief, a false Heaven within a false Hell. The nuances in his voice shift from the darkened, melancholy walls of the seven-story castle, the sad secrets of the gentle wind where no one speaks. No one will interrupt the perfect and perpetually imperfect stillness. We follow his voice down and down and down… through the fire… through the ice... through rooms of shadows and not enough light, from rooms of fading… to burning… to an unrepentant heart of cold stone.  
Down through Limbo, we descend with him…

_'There, as it seemed to me from listening,  
Were lamentations none, but only sighs,  
That tremble made the everlasting air._

And this arose from sorrow without torment,  
Which the crowds had, that many were and great,  
Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: Thou dost not ask  
What spirits these, which thee beholdest now?  
Now will I have thee know, ere then go farther.

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,  
'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism  
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,  
In the right manner they adored not God;  
And among such as these am I myself.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,  
Lost are we and are only so far punished,  
That without hope we live on in desire."

Jackie sighs himself now, places the book pages down against the only unoccupied part of his chest. He is thinking about what he has just read. Though he has read it many times before, something about reading it aloud makes it final.

"'_We live on in desire'…_ the Poet says. Do you think there is desire in his Inferno? Do you think that's what burns in our souls now and what will consume them then? Desire so strong it burns?"  
I'm not sure who he is talking to, but Jackie doesn't seem to need an answer. He doesn't even seem to want one. As he talks, he begins to absentmindedly stroke Nadine's hair. The girl makes a little cooing sound, her hand reaches up for his.

He lets her, staring down at her with what looks like regret. But a sigh, not a lamentation. He picks up his book, restlessly.

'_The sixfold company in two divides;  
Another way my sapient Guide conducts me  
Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;_

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

And now begin the dolesome notes to grow  
Audible unto me; now am I come  
There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

I came into a place mute of all light,  
Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,  
If by opposing winds 't is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests  
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;  
Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,  
There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,  
There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment  
The carnal malefactors were condemned,  
Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on  
In the cold season in large band and full,  
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;  
No hope doth comfort them for evermore,  
Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,  
Making in air a long line of themselves,  
So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,"

He breaks off again. I feel as though I am intruding on some private moment of realization, whether between him and the girl or him and the Poet. Jackie flips through the pages with practiced fingers, turning the sheets carefully, caressingly. He points to a scanned section and he speaks matter-of-factly and mostly to himself.

"The violent are below this level. Three further down. The seducers just below them." The dancer has many vices. Whether by his drugs or fame or the promise of love, Jackie is surely a seducer. Perhaps according to the poet Alegheri, that he is a seducer is the worst that can be said of him. But he classified himself, apparently, years ago, because now the description switches to Nadine with a sudden intensity.

"Maybe it's only the seduced who find themselves on the horizon of light… horizons recede as you reach for them… did you know that, darling, did you?"  
He stares intently at his chosen page, as though annoyed it isn't being more helpful. "There's desire here too. They're punished for their desire with desire that can't be filled. Because it is desire _for _desire. Maybe there is hope. The violent fight forever… but do you think the sinners can find love in Hell? Do they have the love they had in life. Cleopatra is alone there, waiting for me maybe, the flames make her even more beautiful… beautiful with lights in her eyes… beautiful…" He speaks like this often. I try to follow him. He begins again to roughly caress Nadine's hair against his stomach. And then feverishly he laughs, as though he is trying to say that none of this is important to him. His hold on her hair is desperate, scared of losing grip. And I understand.  
But by the end of Cantos V, Nadine is truly and deeply asleep. Her curly head lolling against Jackie's waist, her loose arms limp against the carpeted floor. Her parted lips flutter with her breath. Jackie closes his book around his finger, and looks down at Nadine slumbering on the floor at his side. He pokes her gently in the shoulder, and she makes a breathy –oh!– sound, but she doesn't wake up. Jackie turns his grey eyes, so like the legendary eyes of his best friend, Queenie, to me.  
"Can you get her?"  
I nod, pulling Nadine's arm around my shoulder, rousing her to the point where she can almost walk. Jackie gives me his "odd double-nod", then opens his book back up. The one kitten curled under his arm, who seems to be his favorite, is still awake, with her plumed tail over her nose. He flips through and through and through…  
"You'll like this part," he assures his feline companion. "The Poet comes to _Paradiso,_ because Beatrice's love saves him. There's always light there.

_'Without more knowledge having by mine eyes  
Through occult virture that from her proceeded  
Of ancient love the mighty influence left…_

Within that Heaven which most his light receives,  
Was I, and things behold which to repeat,  
Nor knows, nor can, who from alone descends,  
That after it memory cannot go…"

"Then again," he whispers, "Maybe I don't want light. If there was a Heaven for me, it would be dark. Perpetual twilight, the night perpetually young. The stars would be red, the music would dance forever… I'd bring Cleopatra with me. She deserves the music…"  
As I help Nadine to her room, I can feel Jackie's eyes on her shoulder, where one sleeve of her huge nightdress has dropped down. She whimpers a little, tripping against me. She is shivering. Jackie's voice follows me down the hall.  
"Memory wouldn't follow her."

The memory of the night she met Jackie. The night that brought him to me, and defined, in the strangest of ways, their relationship. They are like friends, like lovers, like brother and sister, like idol and protégé. And hovering above this is another classification, that of seducer and the victim to that beautiful, beautiful voice, the voice that now trails away to an incoherent murmur. The kitten under his arm yawns, and looks up, expecting more. Jackie folds the book down on the floor. "That's enough for one night."  
He lifts the kittens, one by one, to their mother's basket. Most of them don't even stir. I see him absentmindedly touch the damp spot on his jacket where Nadine's hair was a minute before. Nadine finds her way to her own bed all right, and Jackie stands waiting for me when I leave her. It's as though he is waiting to leave, and he needs someone to protect what he has here.  
Before I can move, he walks off down the hall, along the corridor of his own memory palace, alone with all of his thoughts, and alone with the powder that makes them beautiful for a little while.


End file.
